In recent years, smoking of cigars has become in vogue, and numerous cigar shops have opened around the world to satisfy this growing trend. The variety, quality and size of ready-made cigars satisfy the majority of the public.
The tobacco industry provides a number of products. Some products, like cigarettes and pipes, use relatively finely and or uniformly ground tobacco. When tobacco is cut in this manner, the tobacco provides a relatively consistent draw which allows each cigarette or pipe to draw in the same manner for each smoke.
Cigars, on the other hand, are manufactured in a variety of ways. They may be made by machine, or in the case of more expensive brands, they may also be made by hand. The size and shape of the pieces of tobacco in a cigar will also vary. It is this variation in the tobacco filler used to manufacture cigars that causes irregularities in drawing performance and may even cause failure of the cigar to draw at all. Cigars that draw poorly or do not draw at all are often discarded by the smoker, or returned to the manufacturer for a refund. Since cigars may be relatively expensive, the problems caused by drawing failure will create either an unnecessary expense to the smoker, or lost profits to the manufacturer who accepts return of the defective cigars.
The drawing problems are usually caused by the tobacco fill material. Sometimes the tobacco fragments in the fill material in a cigar can be substantially large. They may block a portion of the air passage through which smoke passes, and may even block the air passage entirely if the fragment is large enough. When this happens, the cigar is unusable or usable only with difficulty.
This undesired side effect of the manufacturing techniques used to manufacture cigars, namely the unevenness of drawing smoke through the cigar, results in a situation where the same box of cigars may contain several cigars that draw in an easy and desirable fashion, some that draw with some difficulty, and some that may not draw at all. This leads to a situation where the smoker may be inconvenienced and the manufacturer may lose future sales or incur losses due to returns. It would be desirable to provide a method of increasing the drawing capability of a cigar, when necessary, such that heretofore unusable cigars could be enjoyed by a smoker.
An associated manufacturing problem is the reduction in drawing capability of a cigar due to the filler tobacco in the cigar being too tightly packed during the bunching or manufacturing process. In this situation, there may not be any overly large fragments of tobacco fill, but the limited open space due to the tight packing is such that airflow through the cigar is restricted. Smokers will have the same difficulty in drawing smoke through a tightly packed cigar as they had in the foregoing situation where the tobacco fragments acted as barriers. Another possible draw restriction could be due to overly moist tobacco which is caused storing the tobacco in improper humidity. In like fashion, it would be desirable to provide a method of increasing the drawing capability of a tightly packed cigar, or a cigar with overly moist tobacco, when necessary, such that the heretofore unusable cigar could be enjoyed by a smoker.
In the past, the smoker's only recourse was to either throw away the cigar entirely, or to cut off segments of the cigar until a portion that was usable was reached. This may result in only a small portion of the cigar that is available for use. Further, if more than one blockage exists in the cigar, then cutting off segments of the cigar may not effect the drawing capability of the cigar. As a result, a smoker has limited recourse when trying to smoke a poorly drawing cigar.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,733,674 and 6,055,991 are directed to punch-type devices that can be pushed into the cigar to improve ventilation or draw of the cigar. Besides adding to the expense of cigar smoking, the need to manipulate the patented devices to achieve the desired punch and improve the draw infringes on the enjoyment of the smoking process. Additionally, manipulation of the punch device may possibly cause minor injury to hands or fingers.
In attempts to improve the smoking experience, various methods for altering the aroma or flavoring of the smoking articles have been proposed. Frequently, the cut filler (the shreds of strands of tobacco material) is treated with volatile additives such as top dressing or flavors in the form of an alcoholic solution. Casing materials, having a relatively low degree of volatility such as sugars, licorice, cocoa, essential oils, fruit extracts and humectants, are applied to the tobacco by dipping or spraying prior to the cutting or shredding operation. While these methods effectively provide an alteration in flavor and aroma of the smoking material upon burning during use due to the intimate contact in which the flavorant is applied to the tobacco, these methods must take place prior to the actual formation of the finished product. That is, a predetermined amount of tobacco and cut filler must be treated prior to the formation of the cigars which contain the treated tobacco in order for the cigar to contain the desired aroma. The aromatized tobacco cannot be tested until the smoking article is formed, and it is sometimes difficult to know how much tobacco to treat to form a desired number of smoking articles.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,615,694 to Battard et al discloses a method for aromatizing the smoke of smoking articles by applying to its wrapper a solution of aromatizing substance which is transferred to the smoking article in vapor phase in the confined atmosphere of the packing of the smoking article. U.S. Pat. No. 2,007,632 to Blank et al discloses the use of flavor impregnated sticks to impart flavor to cigarettes which are dispersed within a package containing the cigarettes.
Cigars have been consumed much longer than cigarettes. In fact, it wasn't until the late 1700's that Cuban cigar makers made “little cigars”, i.e. “cigarettes” using paper wrappers derived from cotton. Just recently however, as cigarette smoking has been decreasing in popularity and acceptance due to health risks, cigar smoking has been gaining in popularity with both men and women. Although the methods described by Battard et al and Blank et al may be used for treating finished tobacco products, they are directed primarily towards cigarette preparation, and therefore alternate methods for smoking article preparation particularly addressing the desires of cigar smokers is in need.